THE DEE 125 



negotiations and considerable disappointment, a solution of 

 the difficulty was arrived at in quite another way. An immense 

 sewer was constructed in such a manner that the Aberdeen 

 pollutions were carried below the river Dee, across the neck of 

 land southwards to the Bay of Nigg (where the marine labor- 

 atories and hatcheries of the Fishery Board for Scotland are 

 situated), and along the shore line to the Girdle Ness, the most 

 easterly point just south of Aberdeen, and the mouth of the 

 river. This was a great work, occupying several years in 

 completion, but now seems to result in giving every satisfaction. 



The water supply of Aberdeen is taken from the Dee about 

 20 miles up and the river above this point may be regarded as 

 quite pure. Villages of the lower reaches discharge a certain 

 amount of impurity into the river, and at Culter large paper 

 works have been repeatedly complained against. Taken all 

 over, however, the Dee cannot be said to be a seriously polluted 

 river. If the views of some proprietors in the upper waters, 

 that a decline is really going on, should prove to be correct, 

 the cause of this decline need not be looked for in the river itself. 

 The reduction of the stock of fish is marked in the decline of 

 grilse, and in the ratio which exists between the number of 

 grilse and the number of salmon. If we are to strive for the 

 preservation of more grilse, the question is a large one, involv- 

 ing the fisheries outside the actual river, it may be beyond 

 the limits of the river district ; a question which has to be gone 

 into with regard to the whole of Scotland some day. 



But the Dee, in 1920, must have yielded to rod and net a 

 total catch of something like 14,500 fish. 



